Patch 4.2 PTR notes for May 13
by Anne Stickney 
May 14th 2011 at 1:20AM
Fresh from the official Warcraft blog, we've got another round of patch 4.2 hotfixes, courtesy of Blizzard Community Representative Zarhym. Today's notes include some class changes, including a few tweaks to the priest class, some new voices and a new achievement. Also included is the unnerfing of fun, for those who enjoy dancing in combat:
- Players are once again free to dance in combat. Be sure to equip your dancing shoes before you fight, okay?
- Vanessa VanCleef now has a "sweet, sweet voice" for all her dialogue in heroic Deadmines.
- The achievement "Bear-ly Made It" has been added for those that save all four prisoners in Zul'Aman on heroic difficulty.
Follow after the break for the full list of notes.
ZarhymGeneral
- All existing Valor Points in the Currency tab have been converted to Justice Points.
Achievements
- Bear-ly Made It (new achievement): Save all four prisoners before they are sacrificed in Zul'Aman on Heroic difficulty.
Classes: General
- Players are once again free to dance in combat (without causing graphic errors). Other animations, such as attacks, will take precedence over dancing. The dance animation will be suppressed until the higher priority animation is complete. Fun has been unnerfed.
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Glyphs
- Glyph of Ferocious Bite has been redesigned. It now causes Ferocious Bite to heal the caster for 1% of maximum health for each 10 energy used.
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Talent Specializations
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Holy
- Denounce has been redesigned. It still reduces the mana cost of Exorcism. However, it no longer has a chance on Holy Shock of making Exorcism free and instant. Instead, it has a 50/100% chance to prevent the Exorcism target from causing critical effects for the next 6 seconds. This effect can be dispelled.
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Holy Shock mana cost has been decreased
increasedto 7%9%of base mana, downupfrom 8%.
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Protection
- Holy Shield now increases block chance by 5% while active, instead of increasing the amount of damage blocked by 10%.
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Retribution
- Selfless Healer can no longer be dispelled and cannot be stolen via Spellsteal; and, in addition to its current effects, it lowers the cooldown of Word of Glory by 5/10 seconds.
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Holy
- Devouring Plague damage done has been decreased by 12%.
- Mind Blast damage done has been increased by 12%.
- Shadow Word: Death damage done has been increased by 12%.
- Shadow Word: Pain damage done has been decreased by 12%.
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Talent Specializations
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Shadow
- Mind Flay damage done has been increased by 12%.
- Vampiric Touch damage done has been decreased by 12%.
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Shadow
- Drain Life's damage has been reduced by approximately 25%.
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Deadmines
- Vanessa VanCleef (Heroic difficulty) now has a sweet, sweet voice to accompany her dialog.
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Set Bonuses
- The 2-piece resilience bonus from Cataclysm PvP sets no longer stacks. If a player wears 2 pieces each from 2 different Cataclysm sets, the player will only receive the 400 resilience rating bonus once. This change does not apply to PvP sets from prior expansions.
Professions
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Jewelcrafting
- The shield block value bonus from Eternal Earthsiege Diamond has been increased to 3%, up from 1%.
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from leveling up a new goblin or worgen to breaking news and strategies on endgame play.
Filed under: News items, Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
SR May 14th 2011 1:50AM
"Holy Shock mana cost has been decreased increased to 7% 9% of base mana, down up from 8%."
You forgot to cross out the "up" >.>
Yitzak May 14th 2011 1:55AM
Ow. Poor shadow priests. Totally had it coming, but that doesn't soften the blow too much. Between castrating dps priests and the mild circumcision of warlocks via the drain life nerf, this is gonna leave marks hunters and arcane mages at the top again, which Blizzard has apparently always considered the natural order of things.
SR May 14th 2011 2:04AM
At least Marksman hunters don't list 1 attack as their damage done >.>
Skarn May 14th 2011 2:33AM
Mark sure you notice that half of those are increases. Their dot damage went down, but their direct damage went up. Buff? Nerf? I have no idea, but it's not ALL bad.
Avan May 14th 2011 2:44AM
@Skarn:
I would wait for someone else to run numbers so we could be sure, but it looks like it's a nerf. SW:D mostly gets used as an execute while the other 5 spells are used throughout the fight, and 3 of those 5 are having damage reduced. It'll probably won't even have the side effect of SW:D being the spell to use on the move instead of DP, either.
Thomas May 14th 2011 3:25AM
Using a bit of paper napkin maths on my own results from my usual 10 minute dps test on a target dummy in 359 gear I make this to be about a 2-3% overall dps loss, frankly nothing to fret about at all single target wise. Note that this is based on assuming the 12% is of the whole damage done of each ability, not just one coefficient.
Multiple target dps is going to suffer a little bit but I am ok with this personally.
Mitch_b_666 May 14th 2011 5:40AM
Dots account for roughly 3/4 of our damage, and this nerf leads to a drop of about 5% when taken with the increased mb and mf damage. Not as bad as it could be, but its still going to be very noticeable. I'm just waiting for arcane mages to receive another 10% boost tbh...
fallemwarrior May 14th 2011 12:19PM
im pretty sure this was done because of dark intent
Shade May 14th 2011 12:47PM
circumcision? o.O never heard that one used in reference to a nerf XD
Neirin May 14th 2011 1:13PM
It's an overall dps nerf, but if it really hurts spriest dps that much blizz can buff the shadow damage specialization to compensate. The idea behind the change is to prevent spriests from being so dot-heavy. The same thing happened to kitty druids a while back - nukes got buffed, dots got nerfed. It gives you faster ramp-up time and makes you easier to balance on multi-target fights - from a dev's perspective that's a win/win.
TonyKP May 14th 2011 9:35PM
It's probably meant to be a PvP nerf, in the sense that hardcasting is a difficult thing to pull off in PvP so nerfing spriest DoTs 12% makes them 12% weaker.
Artemisian May 15th 2011 8:12PM
SW:D isn't simply an execute, it's now something to use on CD for mana regen and an admittedly small damage contribution (though maybe not as small now). So I'm okay with these changes for my priestling.
krko May 14th 2011 1:58AM
RIP Drain Life Filler
Kraki May 14th 2011 1:58AM
aww, goodbye drain life affliction.
Shuckles May 14th 2011 2:14AM
My poor shadow priesty is going to miss all that dot damage. :(
Jordan May 14th 2011 2:33AM
Looks like tanks are going to want to put the Eternal Earthsiege Diamond back into their helms... 81 stamina... or an additional 2% chance to block 30% damage... hmmm...
Unless they meant Eternal "SHADOWSPIRIT" Diamond... which would be nice.
benbettis May 14th 2011 2:33AM
Woah let's hope that prot pally change doesn't make it live.
"Holy Shield now increases block chance by 5% while active, instead of increasing the amount of damage blocked by 10%."
This equates to roughly 7% more damage taken per melee swing from a boss for any heroic raid geared pally... ouch.
You have to wonder what their intentions with Holy Shield are, seeing as how at the beginning of Cataclysm they changed it from 15% block chance to damage blocked by 10%. Now they're reverting that but to a lesser state. We'll just have to see what happens, still early in the PTR.
Maccabeus May 14th 2011 2:43AM
Farewell, Drain Life, I hardly knew thee
Fletcher May 14th 2011 3:08AM
Let's hope that Vanessa's new voice is actually good, and that this isn't another instance of Blizzard BETRAAAAAYing us.
Kidd May 14th 2011 2:17PM
Ahahah that's funny :)